This 1960 color movie depicts four cheerful, young former
college students with promising futures who die tragic deaths as pilots in the
Kamikaze Special Attack Corps. In one heartrending scene, a married pilot takes
off with his kamikaze squadron as his wife watches his plane disappear
in the distance. Another kamikaze pilot, the main character Akira Nozawa,
witnesses his girlfriend's death in an American bombing raid, and the next day
he takes off on a suicide mission without ever telling his mother who had
visited the air base soon after his assignment to a kamikaze squadron. Aa
tokubetsu kougekitai (Ah, Special Attack Corps) was Yoshio Inoue's first
film as director, and he went on to direct over 20 films in the 1960s. This
film exemplifies the typical Japanese perception of kamikaze pilots as young,
educated individuals who bravely but tragically gave their lives.

This film generally has convincing performances, but a few
scenes contain melodramatic acting. The principal actors appeared in many other
films. Kojiro Hongo, who stars as the movie's main kamikaze pilot Akira Nozawa,
debuted in 1959 and went on to star in a huge number of films, including
several monster movies, until after 2000. Hitomi Nozoe, who plays Nozawa's
girlfriend Reiko Horikawa, starred in many films in the 50s and 60s. Despite
their many movie appearances, the acting of Hongo and Nozoe in Aa tokubetsu
kougekitai often seems somewhat affected, probably due to Hongo's relative
inexperience at the time of this film. The relationship between Ensign Hayashi,
another kamikaze pilot in the same squadron as Nozawa, and his young wife
Yoshie seems more natural. Veteran actress Hisako Takihana turns in a fine
performance as Nozawa's concerned mother who never realizes her son's imminent
death. Kazuko Miyakawa adds humor to the film in her role as a drunken woman
named Nobu. After the formation of kamikaze squadrons at the base, she tells
the unvarnished truth one night to ordinarily serious but now tipsy Lieutenant
Junior Grade Ogasawara, the lonely officer ordered to command Nozawa's kamikaze
squadron.

The movie opens with two planes flying in a dark sky, and
the narrator explains that kamikaze attack squadrons [1] were formed as the war
situation worsened. Over 2,530 [2] young men died for their country in kamikaze
attacks. After the opening credits, Naval Ensign Akira Nozawa, on a short leave
prior to starting fighter plane training, goes to Urawa High School on the
outskirts of northern Tokyo in order to visit the library of the school where
he graduated prior to entering the Navy. He asks Reiko Horikawa, the girl at
the library counter, for a book entitled Ichinen yuuhan (One and a half
years). Although she initially tells him that the book has been checked out
from the library, she rushes to a back room to find a copy when he is about to
leave. Nozawa reads the book until the library's closing time but does not have
time to finish. Reiko then gives the book to him saying that it came from her
father's bookstore. Nozawa in return gives her a photograph of him in his Navy
uniform, and they walk together for a short time on their way home. Nozawa's
mother is surprised but overjoyed at her son's visit without any notice to stay
the night at home. Reiko asks her father about the meaning of the book entitled
Ichinen yuuhan, and he explains that the author had only a year and half
to live because of an illness, so this book explains what he did to prepare
himself for his impending death. The scene ends with Reiko silently staring
with a worried look on her face.

Nozawa arrives at Yokosuka Naval Air Base to begin his
flight training with the 601st Air Group. Officers at the base greet Nozawa and
three other Reserve Students (yobi gakusei) who will be in the same
training squadron led by Ensign (later promoted to Lieutenant Junior Grade)
Ogasawara, a graduate of Etajima Naval Academy. During this initial meeting on
October 28, 1944, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker to report that
three days earlier Yukio Seki had led a Kamikaze Special Attack Squadron and
crashed into an enemy carrier. Flight training begins immediately for Nozawa
and his three other training squadron members, Ensign Keitaro Hayashi, Ensign
Yuzuru Ohgaki, and Ensign Kenichi Kanbara.

In early November, Nozawa's training squadron receives
notification of orders to transfer to Hyakurihara Air Base in Ibaraki
Prefecture. Hayashi's wife Yoshie meets him at the train station, and he
introduces her to Nozawa, but he quickly leaves after a curt greeting since he
is searching for Reiko. Nozawa had contacted Reiko by letter that he would like
to meet her during the trip to his new post, but she never arrives at the train
station where he hoped to meet her. However, soon after Nozawa's arrival at
Hyakurihara, he receives a letter from Reiko explaining how much she
regretted that she had gone to the countryside and did not return home in time
to read his letter and go to meet him.

Nozawa, Ohgaki, and Kanbara go to a local inn to celebrate
Nozawa's promising new relationship with Reiko. As they go to the inn and also
as they drink there, they sing together in German the chorus that begins "Freude,
schöner Götterfunken" (Joy, lovely divine light) from Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9 [3]:

Joy, lovely divine light,
Daughter of Elysium
We march, drunk with fire,
Holy One, to thy holy kingdom.
Thy magic binds together
What tradition has strongly parted,
All men will be brothers
Dwelling under the safety of your wings.

Their singing of this chorus from Beethoven's symphony
reflects their high level of education, and the words of this song contrast
strongly with the government's militaristic propaganda. While Hayashi's three
friends drink together, he and his wife Yoshie spend some pleasant time
together in their room. An older man staying at the inn gets angry with the
three young men singing the German song, so he starts loudly singing the most
famous song of Japanese naval airmen, "Douki no sakura"
(Cherry blossoms of same class). Everyone at the inn gathers around to hear the
older man and the three pilots try to drown out each other while singing the
two songs together.

Orders arrive from Navy headquarters to form kamikaze
squadrons at Hyakurihara Air Base, so the base commander announces the names
of men assigned to the first two squadrons. Hayashi, Ohgaki, and Kanbara get
assigned as part of the first kamikaze squadron, and Ogasawara and Nozawa get
included in the second kamikaze squadron. Soon after this announcement,
Nozawa's mother surprises him by visiting the air base unannounced and bringing
ohagi (rice balls) for the young men to enjoy eating. Although Nozawa is
glad to see his mother, he forces her to return home quickly since he cannot
tell her about his assignment to a kamikaze squadron. Ogasawara lost his
parents when he was young, so he looks on with envy when he sees Nozawa's close
relationship with his mother as they walk together away from the base. As the
train leaves the station, Nozawa cries out "mother!" as he realizes
this may be the last time he will ever see her.

The four pilots eat together a last meal while Yoshie cheerfully serves them food
and drink. They again sing together "Freude, schöner Götterfunken"
from Beethoven's symphony. During the meal, Ohgaki and Kanbara dance while
singing "Tribal Chief's Daughter," a song about the South Seas.
Yoshie giggles at the two young men's silly dance, but Nozawa watches her
seriously and has to leave the room as he realizes the tragedy facing his three
friends the next morning. As the four pilots and Yoshie spend time together
eating their last meal together, Ogasawara gets drunk in another room at the
inn with a woman named Nobu. In a comic but heartbreaking scene, she explains
that her mother left her at a young age, and later Ogasawara and Nobu quarrel
while walking along the road. Nobu wants to make love to him, but he pushes her
away and tells her to go. She gets very mad, yells that she hates him, and
tells him angrily to go quickly and die.

The nine planes of the first kamikaze squadron to sortie
from Hyakurihara Air Base include ones piloted by Hayashi, Ohgaki, and
Kanbara. In a room at the inn next to the air base, Hayashi's wife
Yoshie gives him water to drink as he waits for his scheduled sortie in a few
minutes. She bows and says, "Thank you for loving someone like me."
They briefly embrace in silence before he must go. Yoshie, dressed in a black
kimono, stands a short distance from the airfield, and she drops to the ground
sobbing uncontrollably after the nine planes pass overhead and disappear in the
distance. The film then presents US Navy film clips of kamikaze planes either
being shot down or hitting their targets.

Akira Nozawa with his girlfriend
Reiko Horikawa in a scene
that does not appear in either
the movie or the previews

Nozawa is given special leave to go by train to Tokyo in order to
meet Reiko on the day before his scheduled sortie as pilot of one of the ten planes
in the second kamikaze squadron. Just before he
reaches the factory where Reiko is working, B-29s start to drop bombs. He runs
from the train and finds Reiko, trembling in shock from the bombing and fires
around them. They run and find a small underground shelter, where they have the
opportunity to talk together alone with bombs exploding outside. They embrace
for the first time when bombs explode nearby and shake their underground
bunker. Nozawa is just about to kiss Reiko, when he pulls himself away and
calls himself "stupid." He explains to her that tomorrow he will
sortie as part of a kamikaze squadron, so he wonders aloud how he can love her.
When Reiko asks Nozawa to love her even though he is a member of a tokko
(special attack) squadron, he says that he will remember her until the moment
of his death tomorrow. She then runs from the bunker in grief at the news of
his impending death, and she gets killed when bombs explode around her.

Nozawa's kamikaze squadron led by Ogasawara assembles at the
airfield the next morning, but Nozawa has not yet returned from Tokyo as they
prepare to sortie. Lookouts spot a large group of enemy planes approaching the
airfield, so the pilots and others gathered to see them off flee to shelter as
the planes bomb and strafe the airfield. During the attack, Nozawa returns and
runs toward one of the undamaged planes to take off as Ogasawara tries to stop
him. They exchange blows next to the plane, but Ogasawara gets wounded during
one of the strafing runs of enemy planes. Seven kamikaze squadron planes get
destroyed in the attack, but the uninjured pilots eagerly volunteer to be
assigned to the remaining three planes.

Nozawa gets selected to pilot one of the three remaining
planes. He returns to the barracks, where Ogasawara, with his arm in a sling
and a bandage around his head, comes to inquire about Nozawa's reasons for
volunteering. Nozawa explains how his girlfriend got killed before him the
previous day, so he wants to see her again. In a time of peace he imagines himself
writing a novel or doing translations, but in this time of war he must go to
die. He asks Ogasawara to mail a letter to his mother and gives him the copy of
his book Ichinen yuuhan (One and a half years). Despite Ogasawara's reprimanding
Nozawa earlier in the film for reading such a book of philosophy, he now
promises to read it with pleasure. As the officers and others at Hyakurihara
Air Base wave their hats and as Ogasawara stands holding the book given to him
by Nozawa, the film ends as the three kamikaze planes take off and disappear in
the distance.

Although the movie generally has accurate historical
background regarding Japan's kamikaze operations, many of the film's details
differ from actual history. Nozawa's kamikaze squadron sorties from
Hyakurihara Air Base on February 23, 1945, and the film's first kamikaze
squadron sorties a few days before. In real history, the Japanese Navy had only
one sortie of a large group of kamikaze planes in February 1945, on the 21st, from
the small island of Hachijojima against the American fleet off Iwo Jima.
Although Hyakurihara was used extensively as a kamikaze training base for
planes that went on to kamikaze sortie bases in Kagoshima Prefecture, the
only sorties of kamikaze squadrons directly from Hyakurihara against the
American fleet did not occur until almost the end of the war in the first half
of August 1945 when 37 Kamikaze Special Attack Corps members sortied and did
not return to base.

The names in the film contain a few differences with actual history, most probably
intentional ones by the director to make the film clearly fictional. In late October 1944, Nozawa, Hayashi,
Ohgaki, and Kanbara report to the 601st Air Group at Yokosuka Air Base, but in
actuality the 601st Air Group was wiped out in the Philippines in battles on
October 24-5, 1944, and was reorganized within a few weeks [4]. In early
November 1944, Yokosuka Air Base officers give orders to Ogasawara and the four
pilots in his training squadron that state they will be transferred to the
302nd Fighter Squadron (Hikotai), but this unit was part of the 252nd Air Group
fighting in the Philippines in November 1944 [5]. However, a sign in front of
their new base does not say 302nd Fighter Squadron but rather 302nd Air Group,
Hyakurihama Naval Air Base. The director most likely meant
this name to represent Hyakurihara (same name except for final kanji
or Chinese character), which served as a large naval training air base. The
302nd Air Group at that time was based at Atsugi Air Base, not Hyakurihara,
and served not as a training unit but rather as an air defense fighter unit for
the Tokyo area [6]. The movie credits on the DVD case and in the cast
information section on the DVD inexplicably refer to Nozawa's girlfriend as
Reiko Yamanaka, even though the movie uses the name Reiko Horikawa.

The film has a few other unrealistic or incorrect details.
Civilians almost never had access to Navy air bases except to visit in a
designated building, but this film depicts visits by Nozawa's mother and
Hayashi's wife Yoshie to the men's barracks. Rather than replicas of Japanese
Navy planes, the kamikaze planes that sortie from Hyakurihara Air Base in the
film turn out to be nothing more than postwar T-6 trainers provided by the U.S.
to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Senri Nagasue, former kamikaze pilot who
trained at Hyakurihara Air Base, pointed out for this film review some other
historical discrepancies. For example, Ogasawara and the four pilots in his
squadron wear their hair fairly long, but in those days actual junior officers
with ranks
of Ensign or Lieutenant Junior Grade would have had their hair
close-cropped, although senior officers could wear their hair longer. The
parachute straps were not personal equipment of the pilots, so in real history
the pilot's name would not have been attached as shown in the film when the
kamikaze pilots line up to sortie.

The DVD of Aa tokubetsu kougekitai contains two
different previews used to market the film. Interestingly, some scenes from the
previews never show up in the actual film. In one preview, Vice Admiral
Takijiro Ohnishi emphatically states to other Navy officers in a meeting,
"There is no other sure way other than to carry out body-crashing attacks
carrying 250-kg bombs." However, he appears nowhere in the movie. In one
of the previews, Nozawa gives his final goodbye to Reiko in quite a different
way than their departure in the actual film. In the preview, they are together
alone in a room, probably at or next to the base since Nozawa is ready to depart
dressed in his pilot's uniform. He quickly and rather coldly says goodbye with
the brief words "o-genki de" (best wishes to you). Reiko
clings to him asking that he stop, but he quickly breaks free and leaves the
room for his departing squadron. The same preview also has a brief glimpse of Reiko as she runs
out toward the departing planes and looks up at the sky. In the actual film,
Reiko never visits Nozawa's base. In final editing, the director must have cut
certain preview scenes originally intended for the film.

Although Aa tokubetsu kougekitai clearly presents the
tragic loss of young men ordered to carry out suicide attacks, the film also
shows that they face death with courage. Nozawa and the other three pilots in
his training squadron become close friends who support each other as they wait
for the time to arrive when their kamikaze squadrons must take off. The director
emphasizes human relations rather than battle scenes. This includes not only
relationships between men at the air base but also with others such as
Hayashi's wife and Nozawa's mother and girlfriend. Ultimately, even Ogasawara,
their strict squadron leader who is wounded during an enemy strafing of the
airfield, comes to recognize and respect Nozawa's close relationships with
others, his love of learning, and his resolve to carry out his suicide mission
despite everything he will be leaving behind.

Notes

1. In the film's opening, the narrator uses the word taiatari,
which means "body-crashing" in English, to describe the attack
squadrons formed near the end of the war. The more common name of kamikaze
rather than taiatari has been used in this translation.

2. Etajima Museum of Naval History records 2,525 kamikaze
deaths, slightly less than the "over 2,530" mentioned in the film.
This number only includes Naval Kamikaze Special Attack
Corps deaths. In addition, over 1,400 men died in Army aerial special attacks.

Source Cited

Hata, Ikuhiko, and Yasuho Izawa. 1989. Japanese Naval Aces
and Fighter Units in World War II. Translated by Don Cyril Gorham. Originally published in 1970 by
Kantosha in Japanese.
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.